Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike
‘Men wanted for hazardous journey… Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.’ Ernest Shackleton’s supposed plea for explorers on his Antarctic expedition would nicely double up as the job advert for the Tory London mayoral candidate. CCHQ formally opened applications yesterday but there seems to be a lack of early frontrunners. Indeed,
Oh dear. It seems that James O’Brien has slipped up again in his ceaseless quest for truth. The hard-of-thinking LBC star is always able to spot a winner and now, having so spectacularly lost the arguments on Brexit and Covid classroom closures, he has turned his attentions to Labour, riding high in the polls after
Humza Yousaf has already stoked a right royal row with his party’s hardliners by ditching a pro-independence rally to attend the coronation. And now he’s really gone and done it by leading the Scottish Parliament in a celebration of the event. The SNP leader tabled a motion showering praise on the King and Queen: That the Parliament
What do you do when you’re opinionated, loquacious and somewhat under-employed? Start your own self-concentred podcast of course. So Mr S is delighted to welcome the garrulous Guto Harri to the world of political broadcasting, with the onetime Downing Street director of communications now launching ‘a brand-new political memoir podcast series Unprecedented‘ with Global. Fresh from
Prince Harry kept a dignified silence at his father’s coronation – even if he opted to make a hasty exit back to Los Angeles when the service at Westminster Abbey finished. But the Duke of Sussex’s ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer has chosen this week to talk about the ins and outs of writing Spare. Moehringer reveals
After the Coronation festivities, there are a fair few hangovers in London today. But there was no sign of that over in Notting Hill, where fitness fanatics were up early for Soul Cycle. And Mr S understands that among the more high-profile attendees at the 9:30 a.m class this morning were none other than Akshata
As the results of the local elections continue to roll in, the Liberal Democrats look set to make promising gains across the country. But for one newly-elected Lib Dem councillor, yesterday’s vote has left him seeing double. Sitting Salford Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Twells has accidentally won a second seat more than 160 miles away
It’s been a tough old time for Etonians. Having seemingly ruled the Tory party (and the country) for much of the past 15 years, the election of Rishi Sunak, a Wykehamist and proud school donor, put all that to an end. With Kwasi Kwarteng banished to the backbenches, Sunak’s cabinet became an OE-free zone: a
It’s local election day for most of the country – though not in South Cambridgeshire. The Lib Dem led District Council there has been in the news a lot this week but not for the right reasons. Council bosses there have just hailed the ‘overwhelmingly positive’ results of their four-day working week trial and are
The Tories might be trailing in the polls but there was no sign of glum faces in Westminster last night. The crème de la crème of the Conservative establishment was out in force to hail the fifth birthday of the Onward think tank. Star of the show was a beaming Rishi Sunak, displaying no indication of
Just in the nick of time, the SNP have at long last – after cold calling almost every auditing firm in the country – found some new accountants. The small Manchester-based firm, AMS Accountants Group, must be hungry for a challenge: the Westminster group’s accounts need auditing in just over three weeks, while the Holyrood
These days it’s hard to turn your telly and not find a politician gurning back at you. But while once MPs both past and present were wheeled out only as guests – hapless prey before a fearless interviewer – now they’re more likely to be running the show. A veritable smorgasbord of Tory MPs currently
Two months after leaving government, Sue Gray is still causing headaches for ministers. The partygate inquisitor is back in the news following her refusal to cooperate with a Cabinet Office probe into her shock defection to the Starmtroopers as Sir Keir’s chief of staff. Unwilling to answer questions to an official government inquiry? What would the
Is that it? After keeping half of SW1 on tenterhooks all day, it seems that Keir Starmer’s favourite gamekeeper-turned-poacher has done it again. Fifteen months ago, it was the partygate inquiry; today it’s the probe into Sue Gray’s spectacular defection to Labour. After much speculation, the government has today published a written statement about the
Oh dear. It seems that the always-online Observer writer Carole Cadwalladr has come unstuck in her never-ending war against Aaron Banks. Back in February, the Brexit-backing businessman won a partially-successful appeal of an earlier libel ruling from June 2022 over her TedTalk claims that he had a ‘covert relationship with Russia.’ The Leave.EU donor initially
So, just what exactly does Keir Starmer stand for? In the latest wheeze to distract from the Sue Gray drama and prove that Labour is now a Serious Party of Government, the spin doctors at Labour HQ have opted to ditch the party’s long-standing pledge to abolish tuition fees. As recently as 2021 he was
Another quiet, uneventful weekend for the Cabinet Secretary. The resignation of Richard Sharp as BBC Chairman on Friday re-opened questions about Simon Case’s involvement in facilitating a loan for Boris Johnson. On Saturday, Case was reported to have been sidelined by Johnson’s successor Rishi Sunak. Then on Sunday he was embroiled in questions about the
There’s not a day that goes by in Scottish politics without the woes of the Sturgeon-Murrell empire being discussed in full. Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross didn’t hold back when asked about whether he felt sorry for Nicola Sturgeon during what feels like the SNP’s perpetual state of crisis. Mr S caught the slightest of
Could the Scottish Conservatives’ party conference have been timed any better than bang in the middle of the SNP’s implosion? Mr S can only imagine the glee with which Douglas Ross’s party planned its 2023 Glasgow conference, the country’s ruling party having handed their opponents an entire dossier of material to orchestrate their ousting. And
Another one bites the dust. Mr S can only marvel at the lemming-like tendency of the Labour left. Just days after Diane Abbott used the Observer letters page to get herself suspended, a draft speech by John McDonnell has ended up in the New Statesman in which the former Shadow Chancellor argued that you are
